Common brain diseases, such as brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy, not only adversely affect the patients' quality of life but sometimes can also directly contribute to the patients' death. Invasive surgical procedures are usually performed after conservative treatments, such as medicines or physical therapies, failed to relieve the patients' symptoms. In such procedures, given the anatomy of the brain, a surgeon has limited space to maneuver a surgical instrument.
Currently, a surgeon can only rely on the pre-operative data before performing a brain surgery, but even the minor shift of the brain during the surgical procedure or the improper operation of the stereotactic positioning system often renders the position data of the surgical site inaccurate.
In addition, any pre-operative planned pathway based on the pre-operative data may change due to a number of factors, such as the movement of the patient's position, the change in the patient's condition, or the insertion of the surgical probe itself. Any such deviation from the pre-operative planned pathway often leads to further complications or an increased mortality rate.